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I continue to explain my story a bit, so if you just want to know how to fix it, scroll down to THE FIX.

But what happens if you want to modify them? I was slamming my head on the desk trying to figure this out. I’ve posted it to newsgroups and asked whoever I can find, and no one knew. I finally just tried something and it worked. We’re using the Budgeting and Tracking Multiple Projects application template form, and we wanted to add a few fields that are important to how we do business. So going to the Project List, then Settings > List Settings, we were able to add new columns to the list. The issue is when we go view the item, say edit an existing project or create a new one, these fields never showed up! How am I suppose to get work done around here. After trying to modify it with SharePoint Designer, I even tried adding a custom SharePoint List form, and that didn’t bring in the fields I wanted  by default, and again, slamming my head on my desk, I figured it out.

At one point somewhere in my insane quest to figure this out, I saw that these project items are content types. I ran with that for a little, but in Site Settings, under Site content types, this item doesn’t appear, so I can’t modify it that way. I’m not sure why it doesn’t appear there, but it just doesn’t. I’m sure there’s a good enough reason. I think it’s because this is a list content type not a site content type.

So, onto the fix….

THE FIX

What you need to do is “trick” your list into updating this “content type”. Go to List Settings. First add the columns you want added to the list. Then Advanced Settings in the first column at the top. In the first section, select Yes to “Allow management of content types?”. After clicking OK you will see the setting page is slightly different now. There is a new section in the middle: Content Types.

In the Content Types section, click the content type name, in my case it was Project. On the List Content Type screen, you will see all of your columns, except for the ones you added. Click “Add from existing site or list columns” at the bottom. The first view should show List Columns in the dropdown for Select columns from. In the list box to the left, you should see all of the columns you’ve added. Pick the fields you want to include (You can click the first one, hold shift and click the last one to select all of them) then click Add. Click OK and now your columns are in the list for the content type.

Once you have your columns in there, click Settings in the breadcrumb trail at the top. If you don’t see it, just get back to the List Settings. Click Advanced Settings again, and select No to “Allow management of content types?”. Click OK and now your fields are on the New, Edit and Display forms!

Note:
In my case, I needed to go back in and specify no to the “Allow management of content types?” because the New menu option wasn’t visible anymore in the list. Switching it back to No still shows the columns and everything works great again.

Please let me know if this helps or if you have found a different way!  If you're looking for further support on your SharePoint install or would like further customizations, please contact us for information on SharePoint administration and customizations.